Penguins Conclude Regular Season with Horizon League Series at Milwaukee

Thursday, May 16

Milwaukee, WI

Noon

Youngstown State University

Milwaukee

Photo by: Robert Hayes

Penguins Conclude Regular Season with Horizon League Series at Milwaukee

5/14/2024 2:07:00 PM | Baseball

Game Notes

The Youngstown State baseball team (11-40, 8-19 HL) will close out its 2024 regular season schedule with a three-game Horizon League series at Milwaukee (16-33, 11-16 HL) beginning on Thursday at noon ET. The Penguins and Panthers will proceed to play on Friday at 2 p.m. before closing the series on Saturday at 1 p.m.

All three games of the series will be broadcast live on ESPN+ while live stats will be available through links on YSUsports.com. Fans can also follow @YSUBaseball on X for live updates.

Youngstown State at Milwaukee

Date	Location	Video	Live Stats
Thursday May 16 \| 12 PM ET	Franklin Field Franklin, Wis.	ESPN+	Live Stats
Friday May 17 \| 2 PM ET	Franklin Field Franklin, Wis.	ESPN+	Live Stats
Saturday May 18 \| 1 PM ET	Franklin Field Franklin, Wis.	ESPN+	Live Stats

A Glimpse at the Guins

Junior right-hander Jacob Gehring will take the ball in the series opener on Thursday while junior right-hander Brandon Mikos is scheduled to start on Friday. Sophomore left-hander Sloan Ulrich is slated to start the series finale on Saturday.
YSU has dropped seven straight decisions after being swept by Wright State in a three-game Horizon League series this past weekend at Eastwood Field. The Raiders won the series opener 4-3 on Friday before sweeping a doubleheader on Sunday with victories of 11-7 and 10-7.
Junior right-hander Jacob Gehring was named the Horizon League's Pitcher of the Week in back-to-back weeks on April 30 and May 7. Most recently, he allowed four runs on seven hits with four strikeouts in a losing effort to Wright State on Friday. Gehring tossed his second complete game of the season in Friday's 4-3 loss to the Raiders. The Canfield, Ohio, native ranks third in the Horizon League with 70.1 innings pitched, sixth with four wins and ninth with 51 strikeouts.
Redshirt senior shortstop Trey Law is batting .345 while leading the Penguins with 71 hits, 10 doubles and 40 runs scored. The Camp Hill, Pa., native ranks fourth in the Horizon League with 71 hits and eighth with a .345 batting average. Law also leads the Penguins with 22 multi-hit games. He is batting .325 and slugging .447 with a team-high 37 hits over 27 games in Horizon League action.
Freshman outfielder Alejandro Covas is batting .339 and slugging .543 while leading the Horizon League and ranking second nationally with nine triples. The Peninsula, Ohio, native set a new single-season school record with his eighth triple of the season in YSU's 10-4 win over Oakland on April 26. He surpassed the previous record of seven that had been achieved three times previously. Covas has reached base safely in 36 consecutive games entering play this week.
Covas is batting .350 and slugging .641 with six triples, five home runs and 21 RBIs over 27 games in Horizon League play. Covas tied the single-game school record with two triples against Purdue Fort Wayne on March 17.
Junior infielder Brett Stanley leads the Horizon League with seven sacrifice bunts while ranking tied for fifth with a team-high 15 stolen bases. Stanley is batting .303 and slugging .465 with a team-high 23 RBIs over 25 games played in Horizon League action.
Fifth-year senior right-hander Casey Marshalwitz leads YSU with 22 pitching appearances, all of which have come out of the bullpen. The Gibsonia, Pa., native currently ranks third in program history with 86 career appearances.
Youngstown State ranks third in the Horizon League and eighth in the nation with 20 triples as a team. YSU's 20 triples currently rank as the fourth most in a season in program history. The Penguins hit a school-record 27 triples as a team in 2021.
The Penguins have been without Preseason Horizon League Freshman of the Year Derrick Tarpley Jr., who has missed the last 35 games with a lower-body injury. The freshman outfielder, who was selected by the Oakland Athletics in the 2024 MLB Draft, is batting .328 and slugging .517 with five doubles, two home runs and 11 RBIs over 16 games played.

Previewing Milwaukee

A Win on Thursday Would...

Give YSU its 12th victory of the 2024 season.
Improve YSU's Horizon League record to 9-19.
Snap a seven-game losing skid.
Give the Penguins their second straight victory over the Panthers.
Be the 366th victory in Dan Bertolini's career and his 137th at Youngstown State.

Scouting The Panthers

Milwaukee is 16-33 overall and 11-16 in Horizon League play after being swept in a three-game series at Oakland this past weekend. The Panthers had won six of seven games before their current four-game losing streak.
Junior first baseman Justin Hausser is batting .337 and slugging .478 with a team-high 69 hits. Sophomore outfielder Carson Hansen is batting .314 and slugging .595 while leading Milwaukee with 22 doubles, 10 home runs and 58 RBIs.
Senior right-hander Luke Hansel owns a 2-5 record and a 3.63 ERA while leading the Panthers with 73 strikeouts and 79.1 innings pitched over 13 starts. Senior left-hander Adrian Montilva has a 2-3 record and a 5.01 ERA with 70 strikeouts in 59.1 innings pitched over 13 starts.

Series History

Overall: Milwaukee leads 72-47
Bertolini: 17-24 // H: 28-32 // A: 13-28 // N: 6-12
Current Win Streak: 1 by Youngstown State
Last Meeting: April 14, 2024 (W, 11-8)
First Meeting: April 2, 1994 (L, 0-4)
Milwaukee won two of three games between the two teams earlier this season at Eastwood Field. The Panthers swept a doubleheader on April 13 with wins of 10-3 and 10-2 before the Penguins salvaged the series finale with an 11-8 victory the following the day.
YSU won four of six meetings between the two programs in 2023. The teams split a doubleheader at Franklin Field in late March before the Penguins swept a three-game series at Eastwood Field in late April.
Milwaukee ended YSU's 2023 season with a 12-3 victory in the opening round of the 2023 Horizon League Baseball Championship.

Recapping Wright State

vs. Wright State – Friday, May 10 // L, 3-4

Wright State scored a single run in the top of the ninth inning to break a 3-3 tie and held on to defeat Youngstown State 4-3 in the Horizon League series opener on Friday at Eastwood Field.
Friday's contest was played in front of more than 3,900 area students as part of the annual Akron Children's Hospital of Mahoning Valley School Day Game in partnership with the Mahoning Valley Scrappers.
The Penguins scored once in the bottom of the first inning, and the score remained the same until the Raiders evened the contest at 1-1 in the top of the fifth. Wright State plated a pair of runs in the top of the seventh to take a 3-1 lead before RJ Sherwood's two-run blast in the home half of the frame locked the score at 3-3. The Raiders pushed across a two-out run in the top of the ninth which proved to be the difference.
Seven different Penguins recorded a hit as the teams were tied in the hit column with seven apiece. Alejandro Covas doubled and drove in a run while Trey Law and Chase Franken each singled and scored a run.
YSU starter Jacob Gehring suffered the loss after allowing four runs on seven hits with four strikeouts in his second complete-game performance of the season. Wright State scored three of its four runs via the long ball as Gehring blanked the Raiders in six different innings. The junior right-hander also retired the side in four different frames.

vs. Wright State – Sunday, May 12 (Game 1) // L, 11-7

YSU did not trail in game one until the ninth when Wright State scored five runs off of closer Chris Domke. The Penguins led 4-0 after the first inning, and they held leads of 5-4 after the second and 7-4 after the fifth. Wright State had single tallies in the sixth and eighth innings, and it scored five times in the ninth.
Alejandro Covas finished 3-for-5 and was a home run shy of hitting for the cycle, and four Penguins had two hits as YSU held a 13-12 edge in the hits column.
YSU's game one starter Brandon Mikos pitched the first four innings and allowed four runs on five hits in a no-decision. Braden Gebhardt pitched the next four innings and surrendered one earned run and struck out five batters, and five runs and the loss were charged to Domke.

vs. Wright State – Sunday, May 12 (Game 2) // L, 10-7

The Penguins led early again in the nightcap, but Wright State scored six straight runs in the third through fifth innings to take a 7-2 lead. Youngstown State rallied to tie the score with two runs in the fifth and three in the seventh before the Raiders scored three times in the ninth.
Trey Law went 2-for-4 with a triple and three runs scored while Brown had two singles and drove in two runs. Chase Franken hit his third home run of the season and Matt Thompson recorded a game-high three RBIs.
YSU starter Sloan Ulrich surrendered five runs on six hits with three strikeouts over 3.1 innings while Nick Perez was responsible for one run. Aidan English took the loss after permitting three runs on two hits with four strikeouts over a season-high four innings of relief. The sophomore right-hander retired 10 straight batters at one point as he sat down the Raiders in order in three different frames.

Up Next

The Penguins will next turn their attention to the 2024 Horizon League Baseball Championship, which will take place May 22-25 at a location to be determined. The Horizon League will announce its championship bracket this weekend at the conclusion of all regular season contests.